FRIDAY

John M. Hill, Jr., MD

Director, Allogeneic Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program, Section of Hematology, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center (DHMC)
Associate Professor of Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

​Dr. Hill received his BA from Princeton University and his MD from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. He completed his Internal Medicine Internship and Residency at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, MD. During Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at the Navy/National Cancer Institute (NCI), he also undertook subspecialty training in Bone Marrow Transplantation at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, WA. He then served as Transplant and Hematology/Oncology Attending Physician at the National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center before joining the Staff of Norris Cotton Cancer Center, DHMC, in 2003. Since assuming his position at Dartmouth, Dr. Hill has strived to expand the Allogeneic BMT Program while continuing to optimize outcomes for an increasing population of older and more diverse patients with hematologic malignancies. His efforts include the early initiation of non-myeloablative, reduced intensity and unrelated transplants, then haplo-identical transplants, along with FACT (Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy) accreditation and program participation in the Radiation Injury Treatment Network (RITN) for the past several years.

Dr. Hill is particularly interested in the use of adoptive immunotherapy for the treatment of patients with hematologic malignancies and in novel approaches toward minimizing morbidity and mortality and optimizing functional status following allogeneic stem cell transplant. This includes early detection of and intervention for graft rejection, graft-versus- host disease (GVHD), cardio-pulmonary sequelae and relapse of malignancy. He is currently PI on trials to improve management of both acute and chronic GVHD, along with a trial assessing the predictive potential of early chimerism analysis, for which he is the recipient of a NNECOS grant. Most recently, he has played an instrumental role in bringing Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-Cell Therapy onboard at DHMC, expected to be implemented in September 2019.

An additional focus of Dr. Hill’s has been the teaching and mentoring of medical students, residents and fellows, with projects that have included poster and podium presentations at numerous NNECOS Annual Meetings and poster discussions at both the American Society of Hematology and Transplant and Cellular Therapy national meetings. In this regard, the unique role that NNECOS plays in enhancing the education of our young clinicians has been a priority of his, along with the timely procurement of affordable anti-cancer agents for patients in the tri-state community. Dr. Hill was appointed to the NNECOS Board of Directors in October of 2014 and served as NNECOS President during 2016-2017.

Sarah H. Kagan PhD, RN

Sarah H. Kagan is the Lucy Walker Honorary Term Professor of Gerontological Nursing at Penn and Gerontological Clinical Nurse Specialist in the Joan Karnell Supportive Care Program for the Abramson Cancer Center at the Pennsylvania Hospital. She is currently holds several international appointments in Nursing and in Public Health including: Visiting Professor at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, University College Dublin; Honorary Professor at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh; Adjunct Professor at the American University of Armenia; and Honorary Professor in Public Health and in Nursing at the University of Hong Kong. All of these appointments, like her primary appointments at the University of Pennsylvania entail analysis and synthesis of considerations for aged populations, health and well-being in later life, and improving clinical practice in health and social care to the benefit of older people and their families. Professor Kagan is Editor in Chief of the International Journal of Older People Nursing http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-3743. She serves on the Editorial Boards of other three journals – Cancer Nursing, Geriatric Nursing, and Research in Gerontological Nursing. Professor Kagan’s education and training includes a Bachelor of Arts in Behavioral Science from the University of Chicago, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Rush University, and a Master’s Degree in Gerontological Nursing and a PhD from the University of California San Francisco. Since arriving at the University of Pennsylvania over two decades ago, Professor Kagan has focused her scholarship in undergraduate nursing education, care of older people, and qualitative research.  She currently directs the University of Pennsylvania Benjamin Franklin Scholars in Nursing Program and two clinically-based undergraduate international exchange programs in nursing – one in the United Kingdom and one in Australia. In addition, Professor Kagan teaches short-term study abroad for the University of Pennsylvania in partnership with the University of Hong Kong. Professor Kagan maintains an active program of clinical scholarship and practice in gero-oncology, which serves as a wellspring for her clinical pedagogy and anchors her understanding of the clinician-patient relationship as well as provision nursing care. Commentators acknowledge Professor Kagan’s nationally and internationally as innovative, sophisticated, and clinically relevant. She is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the American Academy of Nursing. Among the awards she has received for her practice, research, and teaching are the Sigma Theta Tau International Founders Award for Excellence in Nursing Practice and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship. Professor Kagan received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Oxford Brookes University in June 2013.

Susan C. Gilchrist, M.D., M.S.

Dr. Gilchrist's research program focuses on epidemiological studies relating cardiorespiratory fitness to cancer outcomes and clinical studies to assess the optimal intensity, duration, and timing of exercise training in the chemoprevention setting as well as during and after cancer treatment. Other projects involve the study of cardiovascular risk in cancer patients as well as characterizing the loss of cardiorespiratory fitness in cancer. Clinically, Dr. Gilchrist serves as the cardiologist within the Department of Clinical Cancer Prevention at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. She has a VO2 testing lab within her clinical practice, providing objective fitness assessment and personalized exercise prescriptions for patients. This is the first cardiovascular prevention program in the U.S. focused exclusively on improving fitness and mitigating existing cardiovascular risk factors in patients at high-risk for cancer and/or patients treated for cancer.    

Dr. Gilchrist earned her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center and her MS in Epidemiology and Clinical Research from Wake Forest. She completed her clinical internship and clinical residency at University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, and her cardiology research and clinical fellowships at Wake Forest. Dr. Gilchrist is board certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiology.

Kim L. Dittus, MD, PhD

Director, Steps To Wellness Program
Medical Oncologist
Associate Professor

Kim Dittus is a medical oncologist with a background in nutrition and lifestyle change. She is the medical director of the oncology rehabilitation program at UVM Medical Center. Her research interests broadly encompass cancer survivor issues. In particular, she is interested in developing weight loss and exercise interventions for cancer survivors, evaluating predictors of intervention uptake and success as well as moving tested lifestyle interventions into environments that can reach greater numbers of cancer survivors.

G. Stephen Morris, PT, PhD, FACSM received his PhD from the University of Texas and completed a NIH Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in muscle biochemistry. He later earned a MS in Physical Therapy and acquired a physical therapy license. After teaching stints in physical therapy programs at Texas Woman’s University and Texas Tech University, he joined the Dept. of Rehabilitation Services at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. There he both treated patients and pursued research focused on identifying treatment outcome measures that are most appropriate for use in the oncology rehabilitation setting and integrating the principles of exercise physiology into oncology rehabilitation. He served briefly as the Director of Rehabilitation Services at St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital and conducted research in the area of cancer survivorship. Currently he holds the rank of professor in the Dept. of Physical Therapy at Wingate University and serves as the President of the Oncology Section of the American Physical Therapy Association. Dr. Morris has published and spoken nationally and internationally, has served as a subject matter expert on an NIH panel focusing on opportunities and gaps in cancer rehabilitation and currently serves on the planning committee of the ACSM Roundtable on Cancer and Exercise.

Harold D. Miller, MS

Harold D. Miller is the President and CEO of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform (CHQPR), a national policy center that facilitates improvements in healthcare payment and delivery systems. Miller also serves as Adjunct Professor of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University.

Miller is a nationally-recognized expert on healthcare payment and delivery reform. He has twice given invited testimony to Congress on how to reform healthcare payment, and he has worked in more than 40 states and metropolitan regions to help physicians, hospitals, employers, health plans, and government agencies design and implement payment and delivery system reforms. He is one of the eleven members of the federal Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee that was created by Congress to advise the Secretary of Health and Human Services on the creation of alternative payment models.

Miller has written a number of widely-used papers and reports on health care payment and delivery reform, including “From Volume to Value: Better Ways to Pay for Healthcare,” which appeared in the journal Health Affairs; “Win-Win-Win Approaches to Healthcare Cost Control Through Physician-Led Payment Reform,” which appeared in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology; and “Making Value-Based Payment Work for Academic Health Centers,” which appeared in the journal Academic Medicine. He is the author of many reports from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, including How to Create an Alternative Payment Model, Why Value-Based Payment Isn’t Working and How to Fix It, How to Create Accountable Care Organizations, Measuring and Assigning Accountability for Healthcare Spending, A Better Way to Pay for Cancer Care; and Implementing Alternative Payment Models Under MACRA. He co-authored A Guide to Physician-Focused Alternative Payment Models that was jointly published by the American Medical Association and the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform in 2015, and he wrote the American Medical Association’s 2010 report Pathways for Physician Success Under Healthcare Payment and Delivery Reforms. He assisted the American Society of Clinical Oncology in developing the Patient-Centered Oncology Payment (PCOP) alternative payment model and he assisted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services with the implementation of its Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative in 2012. His work with the Pittsburgh Regional Health Initiative demonstrating the significant financial penalties that hospitals can face if they reduce hospital-acquired infections was featured in Modern Healthcare magazine in December 2007.

In previous positions, Miller served as President and CEO of the Network for Regional Healthcare Improvement (NRHI), the Director of the Pennsylvania Governor’s Office of Policy Development, Associate Dean of the Heinz School of Public Policy and Management at Carnegie Mellon University, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Economy League – Western Division, Director of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Growth Alliance, and President of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development.